Tree of Savior Forum

About Swashbuckling. (And High Guard.)

Class and Rank Swordsman
#1

I’ll be addressing IMC directly in this, but I’d like to discuss with the community for anyone who is interested. :sunglasses:

Here is a fun question. When you join a party, what do you expect from your Swordsman? What is the number 1 thing do you hope he does? Most likely, your train of thought is, “I sure hope he put points into Swashbuckling.”

Many proposed changes can take weeks to months, especially when you have to make new art assets. This is about simple QoL changes that don’t require development of new content. I mentioned this in another post, but I’d like to discuss it here with the community.

Base classes core party abilities at a glance:
-Swordsman bring nothing to a party from their base skills.
-Clerics bring Heal.
-Archers bring Full Draw’s snare.
-Mages bring Sleep.

This is a bit of a scam (see what I did there). :smirk: Those three skills from other classes are relevant to the party even late game. The solution you ask?

Move Swashbuckling to the base Swordsman class. This will make going c3 Swordsman worth more(another side problem fixed), and really the whole base class in general. This will also not force players to pick Peltasta, freeing up build diversity and player fantasy.

Currently, many players find you MUST go Peltasta just to feel good about partying. You can even have a DPS focused build and still feel like you must spec into Peltasta just for Swashbuckling. Other players are even advising newer players that they have to do this! If the goal is to not have every Swordsman have an AoE taunt, this is a fairly poor way to “balance” around that. Have you seen how many people post their builds on here and it includes Peltasta c1 and says, “Nothing else matters about this class. Get Guardian 1 for dodge buff if you want.”

It’s such a core part of the game, even how players see swordsman. This isn’t a “gain something, lose something” ideal or flavor that comes with picking a class. This is flat out what many players expect from their Swordsman party members. Can you imagine if Cleric didn’t have Heal? “Sorry guys, if you want to bring a heal to your party, you need to spec into Priest c1.”

While I’m here…

About High Guard: :neutral_face:

To be direct: Make High Guard have a flat critical damage reduction instead of -50% of your entire base attack. You can build neither STR or DEX and feel good about using this skill. The measly amount of block cant even compare to the percentage block improvement (and critical chance) that Finestra gives. This skill is a trap for new players. The best thing to do here is either remove the crit reduction so its ok to build DEX, or change the -50% attack part of the skill so building STR is acceptable. This still actually gets progressively worse for your character the later in the game it gets.

I’m open to new view points from others, but no matter how I play it, look at it, review it, I can’t see how this would be a negative change to the game. (I’m sure there are some devil’s advocates out there though. :smirk:)

Can anyone else think of other problems and targetted suggetions/solutions to build a better Swordsman?
Thanks for reading.

3 Likes
#2

I agree that taking agro is a pretty core part of being a swordsman. I like the idea of swashbuckling going down to the swordsman class but all of Peltasta’s skills and not just High Guard would need to be buffed in order to comepensate for the class losing it’s most important skill.

Otherwise Peltastas would be a second rodelero and both of the shield/defense based classes would be worthless.

4 Likes
#3

I disagree.

Swordmen already have an attribute that increases aggro rate by 50% per level up to a +500% aggro bonus (10 levels max).

That means any smart swordman class player can pull aggro properly as long as they deal at least 1/6 the damage of the highest DPS char in party.

Swash Buckling just makes it trivial regardless of your DPS. But it’s not essential. The best thing about that skill is not the fact it pulls max aggro, but the fact it pulls from so many mobs in a big area.

Swordmen have 3x the hp of other classes and very high aggro rates. That’s what they bring to the party.

And about high guard: flat block bonus is currently better than finestra block bonus. And if you take the attributes that improve damage from umbro/rim blow during high guard, these skills hit for a lot more than they do without high guard (considering the bug is fixed), that makes up for the DPS penality. If you played iCBT2 you would have to agree with me high guard was almost an immortality buff against physical attacks within it’s duration. -50% damage is a small price to pay. This is a tanking class, not DPS.

3 Likes
#4

this^

20lifecyclelater

#5

I hear you. But its not really a matter of threat as much as it is “what do you expect from a swordsman.” If you look through the forums, you will see all advice given is almost universally, “get Peltasta c1 for Swashbuckling.” I think its prety shallow to have the only reason people pick Peltasta for just 1 skill.

I feel you on High Guard, but +240 block is small when it comes to Finestra’s +30% block. Also, percentages will always scale better than flat amounts. What happens at rank 8 or 9? Maybe we will have another defensive type stance. Maybe not. But going off of what we have so far, block values are reaching 2000+ and 240 extra block isnt much in comparison to +30% more of that 2000+. I also was comparing Finestra which is even additional crit for a measly amount of evade, which doesnt matter if you are building only STR and CON anyways. You arent punished for it. With High Guard, you have no statistical gains. Any point of STR or DEX put in makes you feel bad.

And 250% damage on a skill that already has you at -50% attack value isn’t great when you have cannoners/warlocks/etc doing 10k off of skills. The post wasn’t about that I expect Peltasta to compete DPS wise, its about “I put 3 ranks into this, and Hoplite has significantly better block and damage values” when Swordsman are pretty much expected to go c1 Peltasta for Swashbuckling. Its mainly about false choices and being pigeon-holed.

Thank you for your input.

#6

No comment on Swashbuckling.

1 Like
#7

Assuming thats not a bug, that’s pretty decent for a tank, but is still makes you a 2 skill only character which is part of my issue with it. (Umbo and Rim Blow.) I want to make sure I understand this properly. I’ve only played a mage.

Those “Strike-type” skills/numbers are versus plate armor mobs, if I read that correctly. So does the bonus to armor is calculated after the “final” damage number, right? So its only 5.5k-ish on cloth. That doesnt seem too bad, but I don’t know if its worth “losing” damage on all the rest of your other skills. If they are a leather armor type, you get another -50% which puts it at 2.3k-ish total, which is pretty bad since thats 1 of 2 skills you can use with any amount of damage during High Guard.

If I’m understanding correctly, I guess the best choice is just to not use High Guard if fighting leather armor type (or ghost, obviously), assuming solo play. I still believe this is too steep a price to pay, for just +240 block. I still feel like I’d rather just lower the Umbo and Rim Bow bonuses to 100% more and make it so where you cant crit with any attacks, or something else.

Thank you for your input.

#8

If it needed to be buffed, I’d just like to see Umbo Thrust stagger enemies, so you could “combo” it into Umbo Blow for more damage. Butterfly could give reliable armor shred if needed.

Thank you for your input.

#9

Every physical damage has a “type” - Pierce, Slash or Strike. Each of them have their strengths and weaknesses against the different armor types - Cloth, Leather and Plate. Having “strike” damage is not really better or worse than having “slash”, for example, they’re just different (for general purposes).

High Guard is a defensive skill and obviously if you want to deal max damage possible you won’t be using it. You can’t keep it up all times and if you’re soloing you’ll want to deal as much damage as possible to kill stuff faster.

2 Skills class? What do you mean? Just because there’s only 2 damage skills at C1? Most DPS classes get only 2 or 3 damage skills at C1.

#10

OP has a point though.
High Guard is bad in its current state no matter how you look at it.
Even ignoring the -50% damage and loss of crit, +240 block and +50 def is still really bad with 30 sec duration and 60 sec cooldown.
Priest’s Stone Skin (which needs to be fixed badly) easily adds 1000+ block to THE ENTIRE PARTY with no downsides at all. Yes, it’s broken at the moment but even if Stone Skin’s effects are halved, it’s still miles better than the steaming pile that High Guard is.
Let OP voice his concerns, hopefully they will fix High Guard soon. Heck, fix the entire Peltasta class while they’re at it, along with Rodelero as well.

2 Likes
#11

Ah no, I was refering to when you turn on High Guard, the rest of your skills, damage wise, are essentially useless. You can only use Umbo and Rim Blow. If you planned on using something else for damage, your better off not using High Guard.

Ah, ok. Thank you. I wanted to make sure I had understood the attack-type vs. armor type properly. (Very similar to the elemental tables it seems.) This changes my view on it slightly, but what I was mainly talking about for the armor types is that both of the skills you would use during High Guard are “Strike-types.” If you combine that with the damage loss in other areas, its not great.

Lets look at the optimal vs. sub-optimal times to use High Guard (since you only have Umbo and Rim Blow that is given a bonus.)

+Great when the enemy is Plate-type and physical damage type.
+Acceptable for cloth if you can’t find another source of block.
+You need that 150-240 block for mobbing. (187-300 block with Class Attribute)

  • The mob count does not exceed your current AoE count.
  • Flat out, if there is just no need for DPS.
  • ???
  • You only have DPS in the form of strike damage. If the enemy armor is Leather or Ghost, you lose out on damage significantly. (-50% ATK, then -50% total damage.)
    -The skill is worthless versus Magic users (Bad luck if they wear above armor types.)
  • If mob count exceeds your AoE count.
  • If your group pulls off of you, or addition mobs spawn, your DPS is too low for Provoke to help you.
  • Unless you are full DEX, you will not crit. You’d be looking at an additional 100 crit just to break even with this skill… as a tank.
  • Must learn at least all of the above to use a situational skill at best with marginal gains.
  • ???

Basically, if the enemy is Cloth, Leather, or Ghost, you will either see no improvement or a overall loss of DPS for less than 300 block. If the enemy is a Magic-type, the block is wasted. It is only if they are physical type, and plate, and you only need two skills to defeat them, is this skill useful in some form. Compared to other skills, this is why I think it falls flat and is a trap for newer players.

#12

Also like to note on the topic of tanking. The faster something dies, the less opportunities it has to hit you. Tank DPS always matters. You are effectively not taking those future possible hits. :slight_smile:

#13

it is just stupid, priest skill and ice-shield aside. it either needs an attribute to up damage to every shield skills, or, it should have an interested affect like knockdowns on a block.

1 Like
#14

Totally agree. I think Peltasta would be ok if shield skills interacted more with High Guard directly, and Rodelero needs to be more CC/Debuff focused, and it would be great.